In Grief
by Laura W
Summary: Another for the kiss meme. This request was for "In Grief," Janeway x Chakotay, post-Endgame. I wrote it while listening to a baseball game at work, so if it's disjointed, blame the Cubs.


Another for the kiss meme. This one was "In Grief." The request was for J/C, post-Endgame.

 **Kiss #12 – In Grief**

After a methodical search of the complex, she finds him huddled on the floor of a tiny, filthy cell.

He's barely identifiable as himself. If he weren't lying on his side where she can see his face and recognize the distinctive tattoo, she might not know it was him at all. He's been stripped to the waist and his uniform trousers are in shreds. His boots and socks are gone. But it's him; beneath the grime and the dried blood coating his torso and the grimace twisting his features, it's him.

The Special Forces commando accompanying her isn't so sure. The man lowers his weapon and raises his tricorder, but before he can announce a positive identification, she has dropped her own weapon and bent to her knees, heedless of the pool of blood and bile that immediately soaks her uniform. She hesitates, mindful of his injuries, and then lays a hand along the side of his face.

"Chakotay?"

His eyelids flutter but he shows no other signs of consciousness.

The commando squats beside her, tricorder still in hand. "Concussion, bruised trachea, dislocated shoulder, three fractured ribs, pneumonia, ruptured spleen, shattered patella, third degree —"

"Stop," she orders. "Just stop." The commando hands her his tricorder and the small medikit on his belt. "We've got to get him out of here before that EM shielding is back up."

"Sooner than that." The commando meets her gaze. He nods toward Chakotay's tattered trousers and the pool of blood around him. "Femoral artery. It's not severed, but it's bad enough. And I didn't even mention the internal bleeding."

"Damn."

She takes the hypo and passes the kit to the commando, who fishes out a pressure bandage and gently wraps it around Chakotay's thigh. "Maybe one of the other teams has an open antigrav unit." Rising, he makes for the cell entrance and the corridor beyond it.

"What about the pattern enhancers?" With trembling fingers, she prepares a hypo with a broad-spectrum antibiotic, coagulants, and enough painkillers to bring down a Nausicaan. Chakotay doesn't even flinch when she presses it to his neck.

"Chief said they'll only work on the surface."

"Bring them down. I'll make them work."

"Admiral, I know -"

"Damn it, that's an order, Harry," she snaps. She slams the tricorder on the filthy ground beside her. "I swear if B'Elanna can't crack the shield encryption or you're not back here in five minutes with those pattern enhancers I will have you both busted back to Cadet before his body is cold."

Harry kneels beside her in the filth. "The Captain is tough," he says. "He'll be okay."

Kathryn takes an antiseptic wipe and a dermal regenerator from the medikit and begins working on the cuts and abrasions marring her former First Officer's familiar face. "He'd better be," she whispers.

Harry gives her shoulder an awkward squeeze. "You've been through too much for him not to be."

She nods, feeling tears fill her eyes. "Hurry, Harry. Please hurry."

In a flash, Harry is gone.

It was supposed to be an easy diplomatic mission.

Alone in the filthy cell with her closest friend dying under her hands, Kathryn reflects that nothing has been "easy" for either of them — not in the Delta Quadrant, and not since they've returned. The Dominion War had left Starfleet so shorthanded that virtually every member of her crew had been promoted and reassigned within a few days of their arrival. The ones who had wanted to leave the service had been pressed to staying active. Their sense of duty had made it impossible for them to refuse their new assignments, no matter how ill fitting — like Harry Kim's assignment to Special Forces.

And the man who had desperately wanted to go home to Dorvan V to pick up the pieces of a life shattered long before he'd ever heard the name _Voyager_ had been promoted to the ship's command. He'd protested mightily … until newly minted Admiral Janeway had claimed his ship for her continued diplomatic use.

Kathryn sits back on her heels, staring down at his face. His handsome, sweet face, so dear to her, so intriguing from the very first time she saw it. She remembers his jaw clenched in defiance that day, his eyes flashing with anger and distrust.

She would give anything to look into those eyes one more time.

He shudders and the tricorder bleats a warning. She ignores it.

The mission had gone wrong almost immediately. She'd been met by a ragtag military unit, not the diplomatic retinue she'd expected, and whisked into custody in minutes — for her own protection, the alien rebel had said. They'd unwittingly beamed down in the middle of an uprising. Before she'd fully known what was happening, Chakotay had stormed in from _Voyager_ and had managed to get her party out of the complex before the worst of the shooting had begun. But he and his team had in turn been taken by the state military and held hostage. Somehow, the military commanders thought these representatives of the Federation — Captain Chakotay and a handful of security guards — were behind the uprising. They'd then begun firing on _Voyager_ from orbital platforms their sensors hadn't even detected.

The situation was beyond all reason … but all too common these days. Danger seems to have followed them home from the Delta Quadrant.

Kathryn sighs and lays her hand on Chakotay's cheek again. "We never seem to get a break, do we?"

To her surprise his eyelids flutter open. He stares at her for a long second, then groans and closes his eyes. "You shouldn't be here, Admiral."

She traces the shell of his ear with her fingertips. "Neither should you."

His lips twist in a pained smile. "How bad?" he croaks.

She lays her palm against his cheek. "Bad enough."

"My team?"

"All accounted for."

"Injuries?"

"A few bruises and scrapes. Ensign Arskog has a broken jaw."

Chakotay nods. "Took a punch for me."

"But it was the only one, wasn't it?" He is silent. "You made them take you instead of your team, didn't you? Every time?"

Still he remains silent.

She runs her fingertips through his hair. "I'd have done the same."

He gives her another pained smile. "Learned it from you," he whispers.

"Damn it, Chakotay … "

He shudders. "I'm cold."

"Here." She shrugs out of her uniform jacket and drapes it over him, tucking it gently around his body. "Better?"

"Little bit." He opens his eyes. "I'm sorry, Kathryn."

"For what?" she scoffs. "For getting captured? You were rescuing my team at the time."

"For Seven," he says. She gasps and gives her head a brief shake, but he presses on. "I'm sorry for Seven. If I hadn't screwed that up, you and I —"

"Don't," she orders. "Don't you say it. We're going to get you out of here. Harry went to get the pattern enhancers. Where the hell is he?" She jumps to her feet. "He should have been back by now."

"Kathryn? Where are you, Kathryn?"

"And B'Elanna's working on the encryption. The shield's still inactive. Maybe she solved the encryption and —"

"Come back, Kathryn. Please."

In an instant, she is at his side again. "I'm here."

The tricorder offers another, more strident warning. She silences it with a savage stab.

"What was that?" he asks.

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me."

She sighs and checks the tricorder, then the soaked pressure bandage. "You're bleeding out."

"Thought so. Can't keep my eyes open."

"We'll be out of here any second now." Mindful of his injuries, she pulls his head into her lap. "I swear it, Chakotay. B'Elanna will solve the shielding. Just hang on for a few more minutes."

"Doc will have to try to revive me."

"You're going to be all right."

"He won't be able to do it. Not with Sickbay smashed."

"No!" She shakes him a little, and he groans. "Don't you say that. Don't even think it."

"I need to tell you something."

"Tell me tomorrow."

"Won't be a tomorrow for me."

"This is not the end." The tears spill over her eyelids and fall on his cheeks. "Stay with me, Chakotay. I order you to stay with me."

"Yes, ma'am." He chuckles, and it turns into a wracking cough. She holds him through the worst of it. When he is calm again, she curls her body over his.

Weakly, grimacing in pain from his dislocated shoulder, he raises his arm and reaches for her. He wraps his hand around the back of her head.

Their lips meet. Softly, sweetly. The first and last time.

His eyes roll back in his head.

She is holding him to her breast, rocking him back and forth and keening her grief, when Harry returns, and the beam takes them home.

###


End file.
